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chrisseaton 8y ago
> As independent contractors who can’t unionize Anyone can unionise (well apart from military, law enforcement, prison guards, etc). Even unemployed people can join unions. Whether your employer chooses to have anything to do with your union is another matter of course.
- jonathanyc 8y ago
  What? I can’t understand why you’d be so confidently wrong about a complex legal subject. https://whoismyemployee.com/2017/08/14/can-independent-contractors-form-unions-seattle-wants-to-allow-it/ https://whoismyemployee.com/2017/08/14/can-independent-contr...
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    As your link says 'antitrust law generally forbids businesses from banding together and collectively fixing prices and other conditions', but that's just one thing a union might want to do, and it doesn't stop individuals joining unions. As I said, you can literally not work for anyone at all and join a union. This is what the unions will advise you > Even though you are not considered an “employee” under federal labor law, you may still join a union. https://cwa-union.org/about/rights-on-job/legal-toolkit/my-employer-says-i-am-independent-contractor-what-does-mean https://cwa-union.org/about/rights-on-job/legal-toolkit/my-e...
    - jonathanyc 8y ago
      I’d invite you to read the section directly after the quote you cherrypicked. For all intents and purposes you are not able to unionize because you aren’t protected under the NLRA. That is just how it is at present in the US—I’m still surprised you’re trying to dispute this basic fact. Perhaps you live in a different country with saner laws. Again, this is a complex subject, and I’m not sure why you are so confident about your lack of knowledge. EDIT: I think I get it now—chriseaton is from the UK and is unfamiliar with US labor laws. In the US the primary purpose of unions is collective bargaining (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_S...). Independent contractors very much cannot join a union for the purpose of collective bargaining, which is confirmed in both my reference and their reference. The NLRA, which empowers employees to form unions and collectively bargain, explicitly excludes independent contractors (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_of_1935 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act...). I should have noticed his misunderstanding earlier.
      - chrisseaton 8y ago
        > I’m still surprised you’re trying to dispute this basic fact The article goes on to give specific examples of contractors who are unionised, including in technology, so it cannot be a fact.
        jonathanyc 8y ago
        Please read up on the NLRA and the history of unions in the US before continuing to comment. EDIT: I wonder now if the core of this misunderstanding is the difference between “to join a union” and “to unionize”? See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_S...
        chrisseaton 8y ago
        Have you got any specific points? Is that article wrong? You're just repeatedly saying you think I'm wrong without saying why.
        jonathanyc 8y ago
        Ok, I see now—I think I was talking past you because I assumed you were also from the US. See my explanation in the comment.
- mwilliaams 8y ago
  Uh, law enforcement unions are huge and very influential
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    Ah must be different to the UK then.
remote_phone 8y ago
These people are complaining that they’re not being paid enough. Isn’t the proper solution to find another job? If more people stopped driving for ridesharing companies the prices would rise to attract them back. I don’t see why they are complaining when unemployment is at an all time low and they can find a job easily elsewhere. It sounds stupid.
- fiblye 8y ago
  A lot of people turn to jobs like Uber because they can't easily find a job. There are many people who desperately try for weeks or months to find employment. Companies like Uber love to prey on such people.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    I don't really understand this argument. Uber didn't create the conditions causing these people not to be able to find better jobs. If Uber stopped "preying on" these people, would they be better off? It seems like they'd just be unemployed.
    - fiblye 8y ago
      A slave owner gives an otherwise hungry man food and housing. That doesn't mean slavery is at all justifiable. Uber pays people who otherwise might not have a job at all. That doesn't mean paying them incredibly low wages is something that should be free of criticism.
      - umanwizard 8y ago
        Completely different situation. Slaves were not better off under slavery than they were at home in West Africa, nor were they free to go back if they didn't like the deal. If Uber were kidnapping people and forcing them to become drivers at gunpoint, you might have a point.
      - ars 8y ago
        > A slave owner gives an otherwise hungry man food and housing. That doesn't mean slavery is at all justifiable. Slave by its very definition implies lack of choice by the other person. > Uber pays people who otherwise might not have a job at all. That doesn't mean paying them incredibly low wages is something that should be free of criticism. Yes, actually, it does mean that. That's the nature of choice. If someone is offering you something you otherwise would not have, you don't get the right to complain that they are not giving you more.
PopeDotNinja 8y ago
If I were Uber, or any ridesharing service, I'd be optimizing to pay driver's as much as possible. But that's just me.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Perhaps a collective makes more sense here. Someone should explore doing it. I like the services, and many drivers like the work, but almost all of them hate the pay and overall relationship.
  - jtms 8y ago
    Then they should seek alternatives. Electing to not participate in a voluntary agreement is always an option.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      No, sorry. Given the terrible job scenario and way too suppressed wages, "voluntary" is too much of a reach. Seeking alternatives in tandem with regulation? Yeah. Us all saying these over exploitative companies are OK? No way. Fact is, these companies, and many others, simply do not have to be as toxic to people as they are, and because of that, I am perfectly fine with attempts to clean things up. Or, they can do it. I do not care which, only that improvement happens.
- kerng 8y ago
  I agree. For Uber both riders and drivers are their customers. So keeping drivers happy and paying them well would pay off long term.
  - mbreese 8y ago
    It’s a strange market dynamic though — if Uber pays drivers more per mile, you’d have more people that will want to drive for Uber. This would mean fewer rides (per driver), which would cause the average take-home pay for a driver to be lower. Which would cause drivers to leave, but everything would eventually equilibrate. But if you also lower the per-mile rate (and total take home pay), then drivers won’t have much left over to “invest” in their independent businesses (their cars). So, the fleet will start to skew to older cars, which might start to drive away riders. So, if you wanted to keep a steady supply of drivers, a player like Uber should want to maximize the total take-home pay for a driver, but not necessarily the per-mile rate (eventhough the two are obviously confounded). But by and large, I completely agree with you. I can’t understand the logic behind lowering the per-mile rate for drivers. Given their inherent competition with Lyft for both drivers and riders, they should be working to keep both groups as happy as possible. Maybe they aren’t doing well and are trying to get their books in order before their IPO?
skilled 8y ago
This sounds terrible and I would hate to be a Uber driver who has to digest this news over the coming days and weeks.
RandomInteger4 8y ago
How does dropping rates make any sense when gas prices are on the rise?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  More profit for Uber? They don't give a f..k about the drivers.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Uber has never made a profit.
adamio 8y ago
This must impact quality at some point. Either driver competence will decline or vehicle maintenance will be dangerously put off.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  That’s a scary thought. My experience with Uber has already shown both terrible driving and crappy cars (for normal rides - Uber black has been fine).
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    I can confirm this with my own anecdote. (Note, this is also true of most us taxis I have been in)
- nradov 8y ago
  When I take a Lyft or Uber ride the vehicle is frequently showing some sort of warning light or overdue maintenance indicator on the dashboard.
  - BenjiWiebe 8y ago
    Speaking as a tire/lube shop technician, a large percentage of the general populace has a warning light of some sort on at any time... Maybe %20 (that we see, if course) in our coverage area, which is a 20k population city and the surrounding rural area.
    - ez76 8y ago
      How often, would you guess, is it a bad sensor vs. an actual vehicle operational issue?
frotak 8y ago
My girlfriend tried out the Instacart gig for a while as she finally got her chronic low energy and fatigue addressed through B12 shots and wanted something to occupy her and give her a little extra spending money outside of what's budgeted. That experience was absolutely demoralizing in terms of what she was able to actually make. Granted we live in a lower density city in the southeast so that result makes sense. But everything is very skewed toward the company in the case of Instacart...mileage reimbursement is from the store to the delivery...and you can be sent 10-15 miles from your point of origin to the store to purchase goods at. I'm not surprised at all that Uber (and the gig economy as a whole) are squeezing their "independent contractor labor force" given that for them it's just a stepping stone toward a fully autonomous pipeline. The calculus here isn't toward establishing and maintaining a happy and committed workforce but bridging the gap between funding and profitability through autonomous solutions. I don't know what the answer is but I couldn't imagine being in a position where one of the few viable options available for any sort of gainful employment was working as part of the "gig" economy. edit: If that rate is intended to also cover fuel costs then fuel can easily eat up >10% of that $0.60/mi rate. Man.
- quadcore 8y ago
  I guess they should form a union and strike.
  - xref 8y ago
    Paragraph #2 > As independent contractors who can’t unionize, drivers are isolated from one another.
    - frotak 8y ago
      I mean...if they could organize they could have the effective weight of a union - but the circumstances of Uber's employment scheme make that more difficult.
  - frotak 8y ago
    I imagine that would only be orders of magnitude harder to manager in this circumstances than in previous generations. Especially for Uber who can incentivize payouts in an elastic fashion as the available labor pool shrinks. Service quality might decline a bit as available drivers decrease...but Uber won't even have to explicitly go out and find "scabs" - they can simply temporarily surge pricing to entice some of the drivers who either aren't striking or who aren't as committed. Difficult indeed to really cut at the heart of Uber in this case and really swing some leverage as organized labor. Especially with the setback face in U.S. court.
pmorici 8y ago
The IRS deduction for business vehicle use in 2019 is 58 cents per mile. So they have effectively reduced the per mile payment to the cost of operating the vehicle. Seems like they are on the verge of turning driving for Uber into a reverse mortgage for your car.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  And quite frankly the business model might be to just bank on a steady supply of ex-criminals who have a hard time getting other work and may not understand the financial arrangement they are entering into. Exploit them for a while and when they realize they aren’t making money, just chalk it up to built-in turnover and on to the next unwitting driver.
  - ehnto 8y ago
    You don't have to be an ex-criminal to have a hard time getting work and tendancy to get involved in harmful financial arrangements. I would argue, the latter at least, is the median individual.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    No need of ex-criminality. Youth, inexperience, naivete, desperation will all suffice. Following the long established model used by couriers, despatch riders etc. It appears to work only temporarily until the real maintenance and depreciation costs become apparent. Not exactly an ethical base upon which to build - scamming your drivers until they realise it's effectively a scam.
  - caprese 8y ago
    > Exploit them for a while and when they realize they aren’t making money Between all the happy drivers who you begin to notice are just 2 weeks in, and also knowing they are homeless while they are driving in this area makes it harder to support the service But there is also a reason they drove 100 miles from Sacramento and turned on the app.
    - 8y ago
simonrobb 8y ago
I think “in LA” deserves a mention in the title.
- nvr219 8y ago
  nah
reilly3000 8y ago
Its like they see developers and drivers as two different species. For every twenty something dev that makes $132K, there is a fourty something trying to rebuild a life post-trauma, doing their best to net $13K. Since insurance and gas aren't cheaper, the driver now will net $6K next year, while the dev would jump ship to another company if they didn't get a $6K bonus. While my head understands the economic principles that drive that reality, my heart doesn't understand how such a thing needs to happen.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  Same with canteen workers, janitors and so forth. It's the reality of this economy without any intervention. >my heart doesn't understand how such a thing needs to happen. That's why developers, who have the economic leverage, should stand up for everyone working at their companies, including staff that isn't involved in technical work.
  - chii 8y ago
    So would the tech workers cut 10% of their salary and gift it to those working for low pay in other roles? I think it's overwhelmingly no. The option where the company shareholders take less profit is not even on the table - and that's what needs tackling, and the only way to tackle that is via a mix of govt welfare and unions. But the cultural narrative has shifted to the right so much that even mentioning the word union will cause a chilling effect on your career. No ones' gonna do it.
    - burger_moon 8y ago
      If I gave up 10% of my salary and someone else making much less got to raise of the equivalent of my 10%, I'd do it in a heart beat.
      - CarlSchmitt 8y ago
        I can start a Patreon account right now if you want and you can put your money where your mouth is...
kbos87 8y ago
I remember talking to a driver back in the early days of Uber X (probably 2012-ish) who told me he was on track to make $80k driving for Uber that year. Wow have things changed.
- Forge36 8y ago
  The trick today or to drive more during surge pricing hours. One of my drivers claimed to be making close to that. I suspect a large factor is also the city you drive in.
tunesmith 8y ago
So many parallels to the music industry here. You have a vc-funded company, operating at a loss, commoditizing the "talent" (drivers/musicians), thereby conditioning the audience (passengers/listeners) to expect an unsustainable cost for the service, using that loss leader mentality to drive other solutions out of business, until they argue or take action that the talent should expect even lower rates than they've historically gotten so the company can have a shot at being profitable. When the larger effect is that the company has captured value that used to go to the talent and then instead goes to the investors.
- empath75 8y ago
  Unlike the music industry, there aren’t a whole lot of people who would just be a cab driver for free in their spare time even if there was no money in it.
  - Forge36 8y ago
    I've heard many stories of drivers who do it to help keep drunk drivers of the road. There was a German Rideshare website I used (8+ years ago) that had decent popularity without requiring payment within the website. In this case I think we'd need to define "a whole lot" to try and compare the two.
- bksenior 8y ago
  What? One is a marginal cost business and one is not. Not a great take.
  - jtms 8y ago
    I disagree, there are more parallels than not
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  They aren't profitable because they're burning money on crap outside of matchmaking riders with drivers.
pishpash 8y ago
https://www.dailynews.com/2019/03/22/uber-drivers-prepare-to-strike-over-25-percent-cut-in-wages/ https://www.dailynews.com/2019/03/22/uber-drivers-prepare-to... Found more context: “In September 2018, we increased the per-minute rate and minimum fares in hopes of making it more worthwhile to drive with Uber in L.A.,” the company said. “Unfortunately, these changes did not have the intended impact.” As a result, Uber said it was increasing the per-minute rate drivers earn but reducing the per-mile rate and minimum fare. The per-minute rate jumped from 15 cents to 21 cents. But the minimum fare dropped from $3.75 to $2.62 and the more crucial per-mile rate dropped from 80 cents to 60 cents. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/uber-lyft-nyc-la-driver-wage-strike/585715/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/uber-lyft-nyc... Organizers with Rideshare Drivers United started planning Monday’s action two weeks ago, responding to Uber’s decision to reduce per-mile fares from 80 cents to 60 cents—months after the company raised rates from 60 to 80 in September 2018. Uber says it’s now reversing the move to put its fares more in line with other ride-share companies, and that it expects the net effect of this 25 percent cut will mean that average driver earnings will return to the same level as before the September increase. Uber also noted that it increased its per-minute rate again on March 11. Lyft, meanwhile, has not changed driver rates in the city of L.A. for 12 months.
Pxtl 8y ago
Sooner or later the us is going to have to sit down and have a long and hard conversation about this "independent contractor" nonsense.
- whoisjuan 8y ago
  If you think this is bad, you should look at the gig economy in South America and South Asia. It's literally a notch above slavery.
- us0r 8y ago
  Sure. Right after you ask any driver if they want to be told when to work, where to work and how to work.
- jtms 8y ago
  Why do you think it’s even a remotely good idea to tell people when, where, and how they spend their time and energy?
  - Pxtl 8y ago
    You could apply that kind of thinking to all labour laws. Should the minimum wage be abolished? Vacation time? Overtime?
bfrog 8y ago
In Chicago traffic I think that'd equate to maybe $3 an hour
cdoxsey 8y ago
Lyft and Uber allow you to tip your driver. If you feel like they're not payed a sustainable wage, why not voluntarily give them more money? I suspect a significant number of riders are pretty well off. Why not be exceedingly generous? Tip the driver 10 or 20$.
- lawrenceyan 8y ago
  Sounds like a pretty unsustainable business model to me.
- chii 8y ago
  I do not like the idea that tipping is required for sustainable pay. tipping should be a bonus, for a job well done. Tipping is meant to be a reward for extra-mile service. Tipping is NOT for just merely doing the job. By making tipping part of sustainable wage, you're just subsidising the wages that the employer should be paying. It's both unfair and unethical.
  - cdoxsey 8y ago
    I'm paying the person I received the service from. Me handing someone extra cash is neither unfair nor unethical. If you feel like Uber is doing something wrong there's a trivial solution. Just pay your driver more. Sure it doesn't solve Uber's problems, it doesn't change the behavior of anyone else, but it does solve your personal culpability. (If you feel you have such culpability)
- siedes 8y ago
  Tipping is horrible and incentivizes the worker to prioritize people who tip/ are likely to tip and underperform for people who do not/or are likely not to. You can see this play out in the food service industry and it is horrible and only contributes to a culture of soft-discrimination.
auber 8y ago
I did Uber driving a while ago. I just called Uber support and they told me that my pay in the Bay Area is now 68 cents per mile and 29 cents per minute. In November it was 99 cents per mile and 18 cents per minute. I’ve randomly pulled up a ride I gave in November in which I took a guy 3.8 miles taking 17 minutes. Back then I was paid 8.5 and if I did it today I would have been paid 9.1. Shorter trips would of course not fare so well. But short trips suck even with higher pay per mile because short trips rack up dead miles — the unpaid miles between trips. Before, I prioritized miles. Getting the most miles in the shortest amount of time seemed like the best thing to do although I never sat down and thouroughly worked out what strategy would pay the most. There are lots of subtleties that make the calculation difficult. But with this new pay scheme it might actually pay off to go slowly. This would make rides safer overall but might increase incidences of missing an exit when your fare is lost in instagram. Maintaining a Toyota Corolla costs roughly 20 cents per mile, especially if you do your own oil changes. And that includes depreciation. If anyone from Uber happens to read this, I have to say that paying for dead miles would do a lot of good. I would happily give up tips for paid dead miles. Eliminating dead miles would allow drivers to drive anywhere and change the equation in a way that would be very beneficial to Uber overall as a service. Also add a tiny fee for people who cancel ride after ride looking for the shortest eta. On average a driver wastes 20 cents every time someone does that, probably. So charge 20 cents for cancelling even if it’s immediately. The small group of people who like to treat Uber like an eta slot machine can do so, drivers won’t sit and wait for several minutes to trigger the cancelation fee and the vast majority of riders who don’t do it will only see a small improvement in service quality with no increase in price.
- mnm1 8y ago
  I think the cancellation fees uber in particular charges are bullshit and I always dispute them with the credit card if uber doesn't give me credit. Every single one has been for a driver taking a trip that's way too far away, estimated wait time of two to three minutes becoming ten to fifteen minutes or more. If the driver who knows they are taking this trip and won't get there for over ten minutes but the eta is three minutes, why should I pay a cancellation fee when I finally cancel after waiting five minutes? That is total bullshit. Often the driver hasn't even finished his previous trip. I don't know whose fault it is, the driver's or uber's. The software should not allow a driver to take a trip with a short eta knowing that it'll take four or five times longer, sometimes before he even finishes his previous trip, but since it does, the driver should be aware of how far away he is and not take a trip he knows he's going to be way over the eta for. In this scenario, everyone loses.
adamqureshi 8y ago
My brother works for uber, He is 54 years old smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks. He drives a Cadillac and pays $500-month for commercial insurance and has a monthly payment for his car. He has TLC plates to work in NYC ( fees apply) he makes about $300 a day works like a dog 12-14 hours a day. All of his friends are the same (uber drivers in NYC) Here you have the typical uber driver who does this for a living as his main gig not some side gig while building a start up or some bullshit side thing. These are the left over drivers from when the yellow cab money / industry dried up in NYC. The job is literally killing him. It's the classic frog in boiling water syndrome. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- robertAngst 8y ago
  What is the thought on these types of people? They are stupid/lazy, but its their genetics and they can't help it. So what is it, that society should do with these people. Curious solutions.
  - thatfrenchguy 8y ago
    By some metric, your (and my) genetics are also really bad and your (and my) job is not useful for society ;-). The "it's genetics" argument is also super flawed, as if you look your family 2-4 generations back they were most likely drunk peasants and yet today you're not.
  - tylerhou 8y ago
    Working like a dog for 12-14 hours a day is lazy?
    - gjs278 8y ago
      it might not be lazy but if I just dig ditches in my backyard for 12 hours i’m not lazy. I might be stupid.
- 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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SubiculumCode 8y ago
Naively this does seem like it should be an industry where the take could be small. I don't understand why Uber and Lyft are losing money actually.
_cs2017_ 8y ago
I can't quite understand the economics of this rate drop (which happened only in the LA market, btw). Here's my analysis, please let me know if you see anything wrong with it. Uber makes 25% commission from the per-mile fee, so the total revenues to Uber and to the drivers is moving in the same direction. I assume Uber wouldn't drop the rate unless their revenue increased. So they must know that (1) the lower fee will be more than offset by the increased demand, and (2) they will have enough drivers to meet that greater demand. It must be that the total money received by all drivers will go up. So each driver will make more money before expenses (not per hour, but in total). How will Uber meet the increased demand? Sure, the drivers will be better utilized (less time without passengers), but would that really be enough? Or does Uber expect the drivers will work longer hours? I suppose it's possible that people really desperate for cash will work more even as they are paid (a lot) less. That would be both very sad and very hard to believe (since at this point McDonalds pays better than Uber, after accounting for gas and wear & tear on the car). Anyway, if somehow the hours per driver stay the same, the gross income per hour will grow. Income after expenses will grow by an even greater percentage. I really would like to understand whether the increased gross revenue per driver will come from longer hours or not.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  You're overcomplicating it somewhat by separating things out that could reasonably just be averaged together. The real question is what the supply and demand curves look like. It's possible for everyone to make more money by reducing prices and making it up on volume, if that's what happens. If you're a driver and you currently spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for riders, and the lower prices reduce that wasteful idle time, you can end up making more money, even working the same number of hours, by driving more miles in the same number of hours. But that's assuming the lower prices spur sufficient additional demand to compensate for the lower rate per mile, which is going to depend on the specifics of the local market.
  - _cs2017_ 8y ago
    I agree with you. I guess I'm asking how likely is the (quite appealing) scenario you describe? The volume increase will more than offset the price drop -- otherwise Uber would have no incentive to drop the price in the first place. What else do we need to know to predict the outcome on drivers pay?
danielcampos93 8y ago
My wife and I have had a little different experience. About 1.5 years ago we took up deliervinf food with Caviar/Uber eats to get out and pay for our dates. She and I would go for 2 hours maybe 2-3 nights a week. On average she and I both made ~$26 per hour. Since we rode bikes we paid no insurance/parking/etc. I tried once doing it for 8 hours a day and my earnings went down to like $6 per hour.
xrd 8y ago
I just got back from Brazil. There is a startup ride sharing service called 99 that is interesting. As a comparison, a ride that costs 40 R$ (~$12 USD) on Uber will cost half that on 99. And, I heard while I was there that incredibly 99 pays the drivers more. I don't know if this is a technical advancement that 99 hasn't needed to make the massive investment that Uber did now that lots more is understood about the ride sharing market, or if Brazilian VCs are pumping money in, or what. But, I experimented with 99 and it was much cheaper. I stopped using them when a driver let the fare run for an hour after I got out of the vehicle. Unlike Uber there is no cancel button. I'm not sure if this was fraud or he turned off his phone or what, but the experience was terrible trying to get it resolved for an hour. The most interesting thing is that there are startups attacking the incumbents (Uber and Lyft). The exciting thing is that Uber demonstrated incredible growth patterns like no company we've ever seen. I wonder if it will demonstrate shrinkage like nothing we've ever seen. I have no loyalty to them but Lyft isn't in Brazil and after that experience with 99 I stopped using it. Fun times.
- maximente 8y ago
  in Colombia, there's an app that allows the person soliciting the ride to offer a price, then various drivers can either counter offer or take the fare as bid
  - sam1r 8y ago
    Sounds pretty similar to Flywheel
  - xrd 8y ago
    As a foreigner, I would hate that choice. I want to use an app that makes me feel like the parties are aligned on the agreement. When the driver didn't cancel my fare, it made me suspect he was needing to cheat me to make it fair, and I stopped using 99 completely since I started to assume everyone would need to do something like that to make money. A poor marketplace if that is the case.
- malandrew 8y ago
  99 was purchased by Didi and are heavily engaged in a price war to gain market share. Since they are much smaller, they can afford to sell at a loss, but as they scale, it becomes increasingly expensive to pay more while charging less.
ileri62 8y ago
good. The (car)-sharing industry can't die soon enough
rdlecler1 8y ago
This seems like a bad idea on the grounds that the backlash is likely to put Uber in a worse position by further making the case for unions and employment benefits. But that will likely happen after the IPO when they’ve used this to juice their revenue.
troydavis 8y ago
https://therideshareguy.com/uber-lowering-rates/ https://therideshareguy.com/uber-lowering-rates/ is a detailed analysis of these (or very similar) changes. It's more complex than this headline or article makes it seem. The gist is that, at least in the markets covered by TheRideShareGuy's article, mileage rates are going down a little and time rates are going up significantly.

> As independent contractors who can’t unionize Anyone can unionise (well apart from military, law enforcement, prison guards, etc). Even unemployed people can join unions. Whether your employer chooses to have anything to do with your union is another matter of course.

jonathanyc 8y ago
What? I can’t understand why you’d be so confidently wrong about a complex legal subject. https://whoismyemployee.com/2017/08/14/can-independent-contractors-form-unions-seattle-wants-to-allow-it/ https://whoismyemployee.com/2017/08/14/can-independent-contr...
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  As your link says 'antitrust law generally forbids businesses from banding together and collectively fixing prices and other conditions', but that's just one thing a union might want to do, and it doesn't stop individuals joining unions. As I said, you can literally not work for anyone at all and join a union. This is what the unions will advise you > Even though you are not considered an “employee” under federal labor law, you may still join a union. https://cwa-union.org/about/rights-on-job/legal-toolkit/my-employer-says-i-am-independent-contractor-what-does-mean https://cwa-union.org/about/rights-on-job/legal-toolkit/my-e...
  - jonathanyc 8y ago
    I’d invite you to read the section directly after the quote you cherrypicked. For all intents and purposes you are not able to unionize because you aren’t protected under the NLRA. That is just how it is at present in the US—I’m still surprised you’re trying to dispute this basic fact. Perhaps you live in a different country with saner laws. Again, this is a complex subject, and I’m not sure why you are so confident about your lack of knowledge. EDIT: I think I get it now—chriseaton is from the UK and is unfamiliar with US labor laws. In the US the primary purpose of unions is collective bargaining (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_S...). Independent contractors very much cannot join a union for the purpose of collective bargaining, which is confirmed in both my reference and their reference. The NLRA, which empowers employees to form unions and collectively bargain, explicitly excludes independent contractors (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_of_1935 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act...). I should have noticed his misunderstanding earlier.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      > I’m still surprised you’re trying to dispute this basic fact The article goes on to give specific examples of contractors who are unionised, including in technology, so it cannot be a fact.
      - jonathanyc 8y ago
        Please read up on the NLRA and the history of unions in the US before continuing to comment. EDIT: I wonder now if the core of this misunderstanding is the difference between “to join a union” and “to unionize”? See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_S...
        chrisseaton 8y ago
        Have you got any specific points? Is that article wrong? You're just repeatedly saying you think I'm wrong without saying why.
        jonathanyc 8y ago
        Ok, I see now—I think I was talking past you because I assumed you were also from the US. See my explanation in the comment.
mwilliaams 8y ago
Uh, law enforcement unions are huge and very influential
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  Ah must be different to the UK then.

remote_phone 8y ago

These people are complaining that they’re not being paid enough. Isn’t the proper solution to find another job? If more people stopped driving for ridesharing companies the prices would rise to attract them back. I don’t see why they are complaining when unemployment is at an all time low and they can find a job easily elsewhere. It sounds stupid.

fiblye 8y ago
A lot of people turn to jobs like Uber because they can't easily find a job. There are many people who desperately try for weeks or months to find employment. Companies like Uber love to prey on such people.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  I don't really understand this argument. Uber didn't create the conditions causing these people not to be able to find better jobs. If Uber stopped "preying on" these people, would they be better off? It seems like they'd just be unemployed.
  - fiblye 8y ago
    A slave owner gives an otherwise hungry man food and housing. That doesn't mean slavery is at all justifiable. Uber pays people who otherwise might not have a job at all. That doesn't mean paying them incredibly low wages is something that should be free of criticism.
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      Completely different situation. Slaves were not better off under slavery than they were at home in West Africa, nor were they free to go back if they didn't like the deal. If Uber were kidnapping people and forcing them to become drivers at gunpoint, you might have a point.
    - ars 8y ago
      > A slave owner gives an otherwise hungry man food and housing. That doesn't mean slavery is at all justifiable. Slave by its very definition implies lack of choice by the other person. > Uber pays people who otherwise might not have a job at all. That doesn't mean paying them incredibly low wages is something that should be free of criticism. Yes, actually, it does mean that. That's the nature of choice. If someone is offering you something you otherwise would not have, you don't get the right to complain that they are not giving you more.

PopeDotNinja 8y ago

If I were Uber, or any ridesharing service, I'd be optimizing to pay driver's as much as possible. But that's just me.

ddingus 8y ago
Perhaps a collective makes more sense here. Someone should explore doing it. I like the services, and many drivers like the work, but almost all of them hate the pay and overall relationship.
- jtms 8y ago
  Then they should seek alternatives. Electing to not participate in a voluntary agreement is always an option.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    No, sorry. Given the terrible job scenario and way too suppressed wages, "voluntary" is too much of a reach. Seeking alternatives in tandem with regulation? Yeah. Us all saying these over exploitative companies are OK? No way. Fact is, these companies, and many others, simply do not have to be as toxic to people as they are, and because of that, I am perfectly fine with attempts to clean things up. Or, they can do it. I do not care which, only that improvement happens.
kerng 8y ago
I agree. For Uber both riders and drivers are their customers. So keeping drivers happy and paying them well would pay off long term.
- mbreese 8y ago
  It’s a strange market dynamic though — if Uber pays drivers more per mile, you’d have more people that will want to drive for Uber. This would mean fewer rides (per driver), which would cause the average take-home pay for a driver to be lower. Which would cause drivers to leave, but everything would eventually equilibrate. But if you also lower the per-mile rate (and total take home pay), then drivers won’t have much left over to “invest” in their independent businesses (their cars). So, the fleet will start to skew to older cars, which might start to drive away riders. So, if you wanted to keep a steady supply of drivers, a player like Uber should want to maximize the total take-home pay for a driver, but not necessarily the per-mile rate (eventhough the two are obviously confounded). But by and large, I completely agree with you. I can’t understand the logic behind lowering the per-mile rate for drivers. Given their inherent competition with Lyft for both drivers and riders, they should be working to keep both groups as happy as possible. Maybe they aren’t doing well and are trying to get their books in order before their IPO?

skilled 8y ago

This sounds terrible and I would hate to be a Uber driver who has to digest this news over the coming days and weeks.

RandomInteger4 8y ago

How does dropping rates make any sense when gas prices are on the rise?

maxxxxx 8y ago
More profit for Uber? They don't give a f..k about the drivers.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Uber has never made a profit.

adamio 8y ago

This must impact quality at some point. Either driver competence will decline or vehicle maintenance will be dangerously put off.

alistairSH 8y ago
That’s a scary thought. My experience with Uber has already shown both terrible driving and crappy cars (for normal rides - Uber black has been fine).
- smileysteve 8y ago
  I can confirm this with my own anecdote. (Note, this is also true of most us taxis I have been in)
nradov 8y ago
When I take a Lyft or Uber ride the vehicle is frequently showing some sort of warning light or overdue maintenance indicator on the dashboard.
- BenjiWiebe 8y ago
  Speaking as a tire/lube shop technician, a large percentage of the general populace has a warning light of some sort on at any time... Maybe %20 (that we see, if course) in our coverage area, which is a 20k population city and the surrounding rural area.
  - ez76 8y ago
    How often, would you guess, is it a bad sensor vs. an actual vehicle operational issue?

frotak 8y ago

My girlfriend tried out the Instacart gig for a while as she finally got her chronic low energy and fatigue addressed through B12 shots and wanted something to occupy her and give her a little extra spending money outside of what's budgeted. That experience was absolutely demoralizing in terms of what she was able to actually make. Granted we live in a lower density city in the southeast so that result makes sense. But everything is very skewed toward the company in the case of Instacart...mileage reimbursement is from the store to the delivery...and you can be sent 10-15 miles from your point of origin to the store to purchase goods at. I'm not surprised at all that Uber (and the gig economy as a whole) are squeezing their "independent contractor labor force" given that for them it's just a stepping stone toward a fully autonomous pipeline. The calculus here isn't toward establishing and maintaining a happy and committed workforce but bridging the gap between funding and profitability through autonomous solutions. I don't know what the answer is but I couldn't imagine being in a position where one of the few viable options available for any sort of gainful employment was working as part of the "gig" economy. edit: If that rate is intended to also cover fuel costs then fuel can easily eat up >10% of that $0.60/mi rate. Man.

quadcore 8y ago
I guess they should form a union and strike.
- xref 8y ago
  Paragraph #2 > As independent contractors who can’t unionize, drivers are isolated from one another.
  - frotak 8y ago
    I mean...if they could organize they could have the effective weight of a union - but the circumstances of Uber's employment scheme make that more difficult.
- frotak 8y ago
  I imagine that would only be orders of magnitude harder to manager in this circumstances than in previous generations. Especially for Uber who can incentivize payouts in an elastic fashion as the available labor pool shrinks. Service quality might decline a bit as available drivers decrease...but Uber won't even have to explicitly go out and find "scabs" - they can simply temporarily surge pricing to entice some of the drivers who either aren't striking or who aren't as committed. Difficult indeed to really cut at the heart of Uber in this case and really swing some leverage as organized labor. Especially with the setback face in U.S. court.

pmorici 8y ago

The IRS deduction for business vehicle use in 2019 is 58 cents per mile. So they have effectively reduced the per mile payment to the cost of operating the vehicle. Seems like they are on the verge of turning driving for Uber into a reverse mortgage for your car.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
And quite frankly the business model might be to just bank on a steady supply of ex-criminals who have a hard time getting other work and may not understand the financial arrangement they are entering into. Exploit them for a while and when they realize they aren’t making money, just chalk it up to built-in turnover and on to the next unwitting driver.
- ehnto 8y ago
  You don't have to be an ex-criminal to have a hard time getting work and tendancy to get involved in harmful financial arrangements. I would argue, the latter at least, is the median individual.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  No need of ex-criminality. Youth, inexperience, naivete, desperation will all suffice. Following the long established model used by couriers, despatch riders etc. It appears to work only temporarily until the real maintenance and depreciation costs become apparent. Not exactly an ethical base upon which to build - scamming your drivers until they realise it's effectively a scam.
- caprese 8y ago
  > Exploit them for a while and when they realize they aren’t making money Between all the happy drivers who you begin to notice are just 2 weeks in, and also knowing they are homeless while they are driving in this area makes it harder to support the service But there is also a reason they drove 100 miles from Sacramento and turned on the app.
  - 8y ago

simonrobb 8y ago

I think “in LA” deserves a mention in the title.

nvr219 8y ago
nah

reilly3000 8y ago

Its like they see developers and drivers as two different species. For every twenty something dev that makes $132K, there is a fourty something trying to rebuild a life post-trauma, doing their best to net $13K. Since insurance and gas aren't cheaper, the driver now will net $6K next year, while the dev would jump ship to another company if they didn't get a $6K bonus. While my head understands the economic principles that drive that reality, my heart doesn't understand how such a thing needs to happen.

Barrin92 8y ago
Same with canteen workers, janitors and so forth. It's the reality of this economy without any intervention. >my heart doesn't understand how such a thing needs to happen. That's why developers, who have the economic leverage, should stand up for everyone working at their companies, including staff that isn't involved in technical work.
- chii 8y ago
  So would the tech workers cut 10% of their salary and gift it to those working for low pay in other roles? I think it's overwhelmingly no. The option where the company shareholders take less profit is not even on the table - and that's what needs tackling, and the only way to tackle that is via a mix of govt welfare and unions. But the cultural narrative has shifted to the right so much that even mentioning the word union will cause a chilling effect on your career. No ones' gonna do it.
  - burger_moon 8y ago
    If I gave up 10% of my salary and someone else making much less got to raise of the equivalent of my 10%, I'd do it in a heart beat.
    - CarlSchmitt 8y ago
      I can start a Patreon account right now if you want and you can put your money where your mouth is...

kbos87 8y ago

I remember talking to a driver back in the early days of Uber X (probably 2012-ish) who told me he was on track to make $80k driving for Uber that year. Wow have things changed.

Forge36 8y ago
The trick today or to drive more during surge pricing hours. One of my drivers claimed to be making close to that. I suspect a large factor is also the city you drive in.

tunesmith 8y ago

So many parallels to the music industry here. You have a vc-funded company, operating at a loss, commoditizing the "talent" (drivers/musicians), thereby conditioning the audience (passengers/listeners) to expect an unsustainable cost for the service, using that loss leader mentality to drive other solutions out of business, until they argue or take action that the talent should expect even lower rates than they've historically gotten so the company can have a shot at being profitable. When the larger effect is that the company has captured value that used to go to the talent and then instead goes to the investors.

empath75 8y ago
Unlike the music industry, there aren’t a whole lot of people who would just be a cab driver for free in their spare time even if there was no money in it.
- Forge36 8y ago
  I've heard many stories of drivers who do it to help keep drunk drivers of the road. There was a German Rideshare website I used (8+ years ago) that had decent popularity without requiring payment within the website. In this case I think we'd need to define "a whole lot" to try and compare the two.
bksenior 8y ago
What? One is a marginal cost business and one is not. Not a great take.
- jtms 8y ago
  I disagree, there are more parallels than not
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
They aren't profitable because they're burning money on crap outside of matchmaking riders with drivers.

pishpash 8y ago

https://www.dailynews.com/2019/03/22/uber-drivers-prepare-to-strike-over-25-percent-cut-in-wages/ https://www.dailynews.com/2019/03/22/uber-drivers-prepare-to... Found more context: “In September 2018, we increased the per-minute rate and minimum fares in hopes of making it more worthwhile to drive with Uber in L.A.,” the company said. “Unfortunately, these changes did not have the intended impact.” As a result, Uber said it was increasing the per-minute rate drivers earn but reducing the per-mile rate and minimum fare. The per-minute rate jumped from 15 cents to 21 cents. But the minimum fare dropped from $3.75 to $2.62 and the more crucial per-mile rate dropped from 80 cents to 60 cents. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/uber-lyft-nyc-la-driver-wage-strike/585715/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/uber-lyft-nyc... Organizers with Rideshare Drivers United started planning Monday’s action two weeks ago, responding to Uber’s decision to reduce per-mile fares from 80 cents to 60 cents—months after the company raised rates from 60 to 80 in September 2018. Uber says it’s now reversing the move to put its fares more in line with other ride-share companies, and that it expects the net effect of this 25 percent cut will mean that average driver earnings will return to the same level as before the September increase. Uber also noted that it increased its per-minute rate again on March 11. Lyft, meanwhile, has not changed driver rates in the city of L.A. for 12 months.

Pxtl 8y ago

Sooner or later the us is going to have to sit down and have a long and hard conversation about this "independent contractor" nonsense.

whoisjuan 8y ago
If you think this is bad, you should look at the gig economy in South America and South Asia. It's literally a notch above slavery.
us0r 8y ago
Sure. Right after you ask any driver if they want to be told when to work, where to work and how to work.
jtms 8y ago
Why do you think it’s even a remotely good idea to tell people when, where, and how they spend their time and energy?
- Pxtl 8y ago
  You could apply that kind of thinking to all labour laws. Should the minimum wage be abolished? Vacation time? Overtime?

bfrog 8y ago

In Chicago traffic I think that'd equate to maybe $3 an hour

cdoxsey 8y ago

Lyft and Uber allow you to tip your driver. If you feel like they're not payed a sustainable wage, why not voluntarily give them more money? I suspect a significant number of riders are pretty well off. Why not be exceedingly generous? Tip the driver 10 or 20$.

lawrenceyan 8y ago
Sounds like a pretty unsustainable business model to me.
chii 8y ago
I do not like the idea that tipping is required for sustainable pay. tipping should be a bonus, for a job well done. Tipping is meant to be a reward for extra-mile service. Tipping is NOT for just merely doing the job. By making tipping part of sustainable wage, you're just subsidising the wages that the employer should be paying. It's both unfair and unethical.
- cdoxsey 8y ago
  I'm paying the person I received the service from. Me handing someone extra cash is neither unfair nor unethical. If you feel like Uber is doing something wrong there's a trivial solution. Just pay your driver more. Sure it doesn't solve Uber's problems, it doesn't change the behavior of anyone else, but it does solve your personal culpability. (If you feel you have such culpability)
siedes 8y ago
Tipping is horrible and incentivizes the worker to prioritize people who tip/ are likely to tip and underperform for people who do not/or are likely not to. You can see this play out in the food service industry and it is horrible and only contributes to a culture of soft-discrimination.

auber 8y ago

I did Uber driving a while ago. I just called Uber support and they told me that my pay in the Bay Area is now 68 cents per mile and 29 cents per minute. In November it was 99 cents per mile and 18 cents per minute. I’ve randomly pulled up a ride I gave in November in which I took a guy 3.8 miles taking 17 minutes. Back then I was paid 8.5 and if I did it today I would have been paid 9.1. Shorter trips would of course not fare so well. But short trips suck even with higher pay per mile because short trips rack up dead miles — the unpaid miles between trips. Before, I prioritized miles. Getting the most miles in the shortest amount of time seemed like the best thing to do although I never sat down and thouroughly worked out what strategy would pay the most. There are lots of subtleties that make the calculation difficult. But with this new pay scheme it might actually pay off to go slowly. This would make rides safer overall but might increase incidences of missing an exit when your fare is lost in instagram. Maintaining a Toyota Corolla costs roughly 20 cents per mile, especially if you do your own oil changes. And that includes depreciation. If anyone from Uber happens to read this, I have to say that paying for dead miles would do a lot of good. I would happily give up tips for paid dead miles. Eliminating dead miles would allow drivers to drive anywhere and change the equation in a way that would be very beneficial to Uber overall as a service. Also add a tiny fee for people who cancel ride after ride looking for the shortest eta. On average a driver wastes 20 cents every time someone does that, probably. So charge 20 cents for cancelling even if it’s immediately. The small group of people who like to treat Uber like an eta slot machine can do so, drivers won’t sit and wait for several minutes to trigger the cancelation fee and the vast majority of riders who don’t do it will only see a small improvement in service quality with no increase in price.

mnm1 8y ago
I think the cancellation fees uber in particular charges are bullshit and I always dispute them with the credit card if uber doesn't give me credit. Every single one has been for a driver taking a trip that's way too far away, estimated wait time of two to three minutes becoming ten to fifteen minutes or more. If the driver who knows they are taking this trip and won't get there for over ten minutes but the eta is three minutes, why should I pay a cancellation fee when I finally cancel after waiting five minutes? That is total bullshit. Often the driver hasn't even finished his previous trip. I don't know whose fault it is, the driver's or uber's. The software should not allow a driver to take a trip with a short eta knowing that it'll take four or five times longer, sometimes before he even finishes his previous trip, but since it does, the driver should be aware of how far away he is and not take a trip he knows he's going to be way over the eta for. In this scenario, everyone loses.

adamqureshi 8y ago

My brother works for uber, He is 54 years old smokes a pack day and has had 2 heart attacks. He drives a Cadillac and pays $500-month for commercial insurance and has a monthly payment for his car. He has TLC plates to work in NYC ( fees apply) he makes about $300 a day works like a dog 12-14 hours a day. All of his friends are the same (uber drivers in NYC) Here you have the typical uber driver who does this for a living as his main gig not some side gig while building a start up or some bullshit side thing. These are the left over drivers from when the yellow cab money / industry dried up in NYC. The job is literally killing him. It's the classic frog in boiling water syndrome. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

robertAngst 8y ago
What is the thought on these types of people? They are stupid/lazy, but its their genetics and they can't help it. So what is it, that society should do with these people. Curious solutions.
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  By some metric, your (and my) genetics are also really bad and your (and my) job is not useful for society ;-). The "it's genetics" argument is also super flawed, as if you look your family 2-4 generations back they were most likely drunk peasants and yet today you're not.
- tylerhou 8y ago
  Working like a dog for 12-14 hours a day is lazy?
  - gjs278 8y ago
    it might not be lazy but if I just dig ditches in my backyard for 12 hours i’m not lazy. I might be stupid.
8y ago

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SubiculumCode 8y ago

Naively this does seem like it should be an industry where the take could be small. I don't understand why Uber and Lyft are losing money actually.

_cs2017_ 8y ago

I can't quite understand the economics of this rate drop (which happened only in the LA market, btw). Here's my analysis, please let me know if you see anything wrong with it. Uber makes 25% commission from the per-mile fee, so the total revenues to Uber and to the drivers is moving in the same direction. I assume Uber wouldn't drop the rate unless their revenue increased. So they must know that (1) the lower fee will be more than offset by the increased demand, and (2) they will have enough drivers to meet that greater demand. It must be that the total money received by all drivers will go up. So each driver will make more money before expenses (not per hour, but in total). How will Uber meet the increased demand? Sure, the drivers will be better utilized (less time without passengers), but would that really be enough? Or does Uber expect the drivers will work longer hours? I suppose it's possible that people really desperate for cash will work more even as they are paid (a lot) less. That would be both very sad and very hard to believe (since at this point McDonalds pays better than Uber, after accounting for gas and wear & tear on the car). Anyway, if somehow the hours per driver stay the same, the gross income per hour will grow. Income after expenses will grow by an even greater percentage. I really would like to understand whether the increased gross revenue per driver will come from longer hours or not.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
You're overcomplicating it somewhat by separating things out that could reasonably just be averaged together. The real question is what the supply and demand curves look like. It's possible for everyone to make more money by reducing prices and making it up on volume, if that's what happens. If you're a driver and you currently spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for riders, and the lower prices reduce that wasteful idle time, you can end up making more money, even working the same number of hours, by driving more miles in the same number of hours. But that's assuming the lower prices spur sufficient additional demand to compensate for the lower rate per mile, which is going to depend on the specifics of the local market.
- _cs2017_ 8y ago
  I agree with you. I guess I'm asking how likely is the (quite appealing) scenario you describe? The volume increase will more than offset the price drop -- otherwise Uber would have no incentive to drop the price in the first place. What else do we need to know to predict the outcome on drivers pay?

danielcampos93 8y ago

My wife and I have had a little different experience. About 1.5 years ago we took up deliervinf food with Caviar/Uber eats to get out and pay for our dates. She and I would go for 2 hours maybe 2-3 nights a week. On average she and I both made ~$26 per hour. Since we rode bikes we paid no insurance/parking/etc. I tried once doing it for 8 hours a day and my earnings went down to like $6 per hour.

xrd 8y ago

I just got back from Brazil. There is a startup ride sharing service called 99 that is interesting. As a comparison, a ride that costs 40 R$ (~$12 USD) on Uber will cost half that on 99. And, I heard while I was there that incredibly 99 pays the drivers more. I don't know if this is a technical advancement that 99 hasn't needed to make the massive investment that Uber did now that lots more is understood about the ride sharing market, or if Brazilian VCs are pumping money in, or what. But, I experimented with 99 and it was much cheaper. I stopped using them when a driver let the fare run for an hour after I got out of the vehicle. Unlike Uber there is no cancel button. I'm not sure if this was fraud or he turned off his phone or what, but the experience was terrible trying to get it resolved for an hour. The most interesting thing is that there are startups attacking the incumbents (Uber and Lyft). The exciting thing is that Uber demonstrated incredible growth patterns like no company we've ever seen. I wonder if it will demonstrate shrinkage like nothing we've ever seen. I have no loyalty to them but Lyft isn't in Brazil and after that experience with 99 I stopped using it. Fun times.

maximente 8y ago
in Colombia, there's an app that allows the person soliciting the ride to offer a price, then various drivers can either counter offer or take the fare as bid
- sam1r 8y ago
  Sounds pretty similar to Flywheel
- xrd 8y ago
  As a foreigner, I would hate that choice. I want to use an app that makes me feel like the parties are aligned on the agreement. When the driver didn't cancel my fare, it made me suspect he was needing to cheat me to make it fair, and I stopped using 99 completely since I started to assume everyone would need to do something like that to make money. A poor marketplace if that is the case.
malandrew 8y ago
99 was purchased by Didi and are heavily engaged in a price war to gain market share. Since they are much smaller, they can afford to sell at a loss, but as they scale, it becomes increasingly expensive to pay more while charging less.

ileri62 8y ago

good. The (car)-sharing industry can't die soon enough

rdlecler1 8y ago

This seems like a bad idea on the grounds that the backlash is likely to put Uber in a worse position by further making the case for unions and employment benefits. But that will likely happen after the IPO when they’ve used this to juice their revenue.

troydavis 8y ago

https://therideshareguy.com/uber-lowering-rates/ https://therideshareguy.com/uber-lowering-rates/ is a detailed analysis of these (or very similar) changes. It's more complex than this headline or article makes it seem. The gist is that, at least in the markets covered by TheRideShareGuy's article, mileage rates are going down a little and time rates are going up significantly.